Hong Kong & Los Angeles - Paul Hastings LLP, a leading global law firm, announced today that the firm represented a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Life Insurance Group (“China Life”), the largest financial insurance corporation in China and one of the largest insurers in the world, in its formation of a strategic joint venture with ElmTree Funds, LLC (“ElmTree Funds”), a leading private equity real estate firm headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, together with the joint venture’s acquisition of a U.S. commercial real estate net lease portfolio for approximately US$950 million. The portfolio will initially comprise 48 single-tenant properties aggregating more than 5.5 million square feet across 20 states in the United States and, subject to certain conditions, the transaction agreement provides for the acquisition of two additional single-tenant net lease properties. The portfolio was acquired from a private equity fund managed by ElmTree Funds, and ElmTree Funds will continue to serve as asset manager of the portfolio.
The strategic joint venture reflects the strong outlook on the U.S. commercial net lease sector and gives China Life immediate scale and diversification in the U.S. market.
Paul Hastings’ Global Real Estate practice has advised China Life on several of its key overseas acquisitions over the years including its co-investment in the US$1.65 billion acquisition of 1285 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan last year, and its formation of a partnership with Global Logistic Properties and two additional leading Asian global institutional investors for the acquisition of a Class-A, state-of-the-art U.S. logistics portfolio valued at approximately US$4.5 billion in 2015.
The Paul Hastings team was led by real estate partners Philip Feder (Los Angeles), David Blumenfeld (Hong Kong) and Paul Guan (Hong Kong), senior associate Sam Alavi (Los Angeles), and corporate of counsel Meka Meng (Beijing). Litigation partner Scott Flicker (Washington DC) led the legal team in securing CFIUS approval of this transaction.
